NHL 2K10 Feature Blowout

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All new online, community, and multiplayer offerings, as well as Wii MotionPlus, Wii Speak, create-a-team, and more? You better believe it.

By Mark Bozon

With the hockey season starting back up in just a few short months 2K has pulled back the curtain on the next wave of on-ice action. In this full-feature interview we sit down with producer Ben Bishop to talk about the 360 and PS3 versions of the game, as well as the huge innovation going on in the Wii arena. Check out our chat below, and start sharpening those skates. It may be the middle of summer, but hockey season is just around the corner.

IGN: So, first of all we chatted briefly about your new NHL experience at your mo-cap event in Las Vegas. But for those that are kind of late to the party or don't know what NHL2K is all about, what's it really bringing to the table this year? As far as having more multiplayer and a more casual "everybody can play" kind of feel.

2K: You know, it's interesting, I think there's definitely that sort of aspect but at the same time we also felt like we were kind of going back to the roots to try to bring back some of the realistic, sim-style hockey. We wanted to make the game something that's definitely accessible to people -- something you can sit down and play with your buddies, but at the same time I think it also plays a really good game of hockey this year. We've done a ton of work just trying to make the game look better, play better, feel better. We've done a ton of animations to improve the skating engine, to improve the goalies, to improve stick-handling and to improve the controls in general.

So I think that all that together kind of makes a big difference and I think one of the biggest and probably one of my favorite things in regards to making it something you can play with your friends more easily is kind of the way we've broken down the online wall. In the past, you'd have to go dig for the Xbox Live or the online option to try to get online and play against your friends, and now basically every mode is online accessible right from the team select screen. So if I wanted to just jump in and play a quick game right from that team select screen I can just choose to find a random online opponent, or I can invite a friend, or I can just choose to play against the CPU. And I then that same thing applies to all the other modes in the game too, so like if I'm in Franchise playing through my season and I'm playing against the Sharks, and I know one of my buddies is a Sharks fan, I can just choose to invite him right from the team select screen and have him be my opponent in my Franchise. So you can really kind of mix things up that way and it really makes it a lot more accessible for you to play against people all around the country.

Want full stick control? Wii MotionPlus has got you covered.

IGN: That's cool. As far as doing online, co-op Franchise or things like that, is that something where you could actually say "OK, I'm going to play on my box and you play on your box and we'll both play for the Red Wings. I'll be center and you be winger," and go through a whole Franchise that way? Or is it more like if you get to the point where you're going to do a game and a friend's online you just bring him in for that one game?

2K: You can basically do it either or, it's pretty much up to you. So if you're playing through a Franchise, any time you're going in to play a game from the team select screen you can choose to play against a friend. And you can either put him on the opposing side and have him be your opponent, or you can just have him jump over to your side so you can play through the game together. So you kind of have some options there to do it either way.

IGN: Cool, that's awesome. Is it two players specifically, or if I have a couple of people at the house and I want to bring on a third or fourth person is that something I could do?

2K: Yeah, you could. If you had other people with you on your console you could definitely do that. And the other thing that's important to mention too, and you've probably heard this, is that all this online stuff applies to Wii too. That was certainly a big thing last year -- the Wii version wasn't online at all. So now all of the online stuff we have on the other consoles is also on the Wii.

IGN: Exactly. So for the PS3 and the 360 again, can you just a little bit deeper on how all the online connectivity actually works? How much deeper is it in comparison to, say, last year's version? And then specifically the new Create-a-Team and Highlights and Screen Uploader. Is that stuff really taking over in a big way because online/connectivity is such a big focus?

2K: Yeah. So we still have the same kind of online league tournaments we've had in previous years, so that's definitely still there if you've got 30 guys and you want to play through a season together you can do that. But one of the biggest new modes that kind of built on our Team Up mode from last year where you could connect up to 12 consoles is actual team play. We have a totally new Create-a-Player system in the game too, but in Create-a-Team basically what you can do is customize your own team, you can take that online and then have a bunch of friends join up on your team and play against other created teams.

And then we've got leaderboards to track your records, we've got all sorts of stats that are tracked -- so you can basically see how you stack up against all the other people out there. And the thing that's kind of cool with Create-a-Team is you get to create your own sort of your own unique, persistent identity and play against other people out there and see how you stack up. And it's kind of nice, because last year with just regular Team Up play it was just one game and you're done, and now you can keep going with it and see how you do over a longer period of time.

The Wii version includes everything the other consoles have. That means co-op franchise, online, create-a-team and more.

IGN: If I had some friends over playing, could I send them a Create-a-Team? Or is it something like if you create a team and you put all the work into it, you want the gamers to keep their own?

2K: Whoever creates the team can send out invites for other people to join their team, and then once you've joined the team you're basically a member of that team and when you choose to play a game whoever's online at the time can choose to be out there on the ice playing against whatever other teams you're able to find and match up against.

IGN: Is there anything else you want to mention specifically on the 360 or PS3 side? Otherwise I can move on to Wii-specific stuff.

2K: The other thing that I think you kind of touched on in your question initially was 2K Share, and being able to share things. And this obviously wasn't something that made it into NHL 2K9, so it's something we definitely wanted to bring on board for 2K10. Now with 2K Share you can upload rosters, you can upload game sliders, you can upload created players and a new addition to it this year is you can actually upload draft classes. So if you want to upload the upcoming draft class, and you want to set it up with all these specific guys with a bunch of your friends, or if you want to go back and create some draft classes fro m the past you can do that. And then you can upload it via 2K Share and then when you get to that point in the off-season with your Franchise, it'll give you the option to take the game's generated draft class, or one of your own, or one that you've downloaded from 2K Share. So it's another way to mix things up in Franchise and give you some extra replayability with all that. And then that applies to the Wii of course, as well.

We also have a brand new stick lift system as well across all systems, so you can lift up opponent sticks and stop them from getting passes, and on the opposite side we also have a new stumble shot system, so if you're getting pushed or bumped while taking a shot the AI will know to try and take that shot anyways. In the past it was really annoying as you'd hit the shot button, but since there was a bump or a small check you won't shoot, and that's been in NHL games for a long time now. We've eliminated that, so now if you hit the shot button your player will try to make the best of the shot and still fire away, and that will remove a lot of the disconnect that comes with the check/shooting system.